Roller Hockey League - reinventing the wheel. (20/20 Vancouver Voodoo)

[cLuTcHy]

Saw you wanted some more comments before you continue so I figured I’d jump in I love it man I think all your concepts so far are really a breath of fresh air and I’m super pumped to see what else you have in store. Being from Florida I’m  usually not a huge fan Of the vice/tropical usage but seeing  your Miami Flamingos design has really changed my opinion. Your balance between exotic and traditional is really nice and that’s why I could see The flamingos and your other concepts here on this page being literal teams. I usually don’t make any comments but I’ve always been a big fan of what the RHI attempted back in the 90s so I was really excited to see that this was being modernized  as the RHL. 

[stumpygremlin]

Dude, I would rock the :censored: out of those Flamingoes sweaters. This whole series has been fantastic.

[Edubdesign]

Alrighty then, lets go north to Detroit. They had an original team in the RHI, with the unwieldy name of the Detroit Motor City Mustangs.

 

The Detroit... Motor City... Mustangs. Your team name should not have two nicknames AND the official city name in it. Brutal. The team sucked too, their logo was the bad kind of 90s cheese that didn't look good at any time and they played their games in a convention centre . Bad start.

 

I like the idea of calling a team "Motor City" - it's corny enough to fit in alternate sports, like inline hockey or MiLB, but tough-sounding enough to work for professional sports. Add to that a crucial part of an engine (instead of the name of a car from one of the city's three car companies - closing off your options there) and you get this, the Motor City Sparkplugs.

 

We've got a red base (because Red Wings), contrasting sleeves (because Red Wings) and a wavy outline effect coming out from the primary logo. The third jersey is, of course, a take on the Wings' uni in inline form.

[WLD42]

Everyone else has already sung the Flamingos' praises, and I have to agree. That gradient is beautiful. I wonder if the away jersey has enough white to really count as such, but I also expect it'd contrast with every other team's home jersey enough that it doesn't really matter. The third jersey looks plucked straight from the 90s in the most awesome way. The wordmark-as-crest might get a little lost at a distance, especially with the skinny letters, but the colors carry the day enough that it doesn't bother me.

 

I really like the Sparkplugs' identity and the jerseys are a lot of fun; the triple-stripe on only one leg seems perfect for the league you're creating. It may just be a trick of the template, but the black stripe on the arms feels a bit high, where it would appear to get cut off by the armpit and not go all the way around the sleeve, which isn't a look that I'm a fan of. Even if it does go all the way around, it still just seems squished up too close to the shoulder yoke. I'd say it's even more apparent on the third jersey, where there's no more striping below it, so it has plenty of room where it could get shifted down. And unfortunately, the logo's not quite doing it for me. Conceptually, I understand it, but I think it's just a bit too abstract; each time I look at it, my brain refuses to see it as a sparkplug with MCS inside until I've been staring at it for a while, no matter how many times a scroll away and come back to it.

[Edubdesign]

Moving ahead to Philly. This one's a personal favourite. Taking a cue from the City of Brotherly Love's favourite fictional son (no, not Gritty - Rocky Balboa) here are the Philadelphia Heavyweights.

 

The Heavyweights' unis take inspiration from Balboa's famous flag shorts and the original colours of the US, of which Philly served as a capital. The third uni is based what Rocky wore in Rocky II, when he first won the world title - the colours are from his shorts and socks during the fight and the "WIN, PHILLY, WIN" is inspired by his training attire with the sloga "WIN, ROCKY, WIN".

 

[Edubdesign]

Bumping this for a sec before finishing off this division.

[vtgco]

I think Heavyweights is a really nice choice of name, and the home and away jerseys look good (though I'm not feeling the blue knee stripe, even if it's meant to emulate shorts.)

The alt looks good in a vacuum but I wonder if Philadelphians might be averse to a Pittsburgh color scheme, so maybe you could do it in gray/light blue like the shirt it's from.

The logo needs some rethinking, IMO, especially since it's a bit hard to read as a boxing glove. The front of the glove is too short and stubby, and the thumb looks pointy rather than being tucked in (especially because it's longer than the fist!) Also not really feeling the use of black outlines instead of blue, or the H on the wrist. I'd definitely suggest @neo_prankster's Philly Brawlers concept as a potential source of inspiration.

 

 

As for Motor City, I think the jersey design is pretty cool, especially with that sorta emanating design and leg striping. That said, I'm sorta with WLD42 on it; the striping gap is a bit big and it takes a sec to see the sparkplug. Luckily I think this one is a bit closer! The top looks kinda like a hat right now, but you could make it less squat and more into a screw shape and I think that would help. The "S" is the hardest to read, I think, but you could probably ditch it, just go with "MC," and make the bottom much more explicitly sparkplug-like.

I think that third jersey is really pretty. The colors and simple striping are quite nice, and even if the MC doesn't read as anything specific, it still has a really cool industrial vibe to it!

 

 

[Edubdesign]

We wrap up the American division with Washington, D.C. This team is named after Henry the Elephant, one of the biggest exhibits at Washington's National Museum of Natural History and features a cherry blossom pink colour after Washington's famous trees.

 

Please welcome the Washington Mastodons.

 

[Bomba Tomba]

The pink feels forced on the home and away. You should keep it on the alt though

[WLD42]

On 7/24/2021 at 12:33 AM, Bomba Tomba said:

The pink feels forced on the home and away. You should keep it on the alt though

 

I agree, to an extent. I like the use of pink, especially because of the local connection with the cherry blossoms reference, but I think the home especially could benefit from including both white and pink to balance each other out, and I think the logo would look better with white rather than pink (though it could perhaps stay as the outline); it just reads as bloodshot eyes to me, and is a bit off-putting. I'm 100% on board with not playing it safe when doing something creative, though; I definitely subscribe to the philosophy that it's always easier to pull something wild back, and still end up with a unique final product, than to try and revise something bland in the other direction.

 

Absolutely love the third jersey, which screams DC. I'm not sure if the sublimated design is inspired by something in particular from DC (Is it a Metro station ceiling? It's been close to a decade since I've used the DC Metro, but that feels like it's bringing back some memories.), but it looks great regardless.

[jbird669]

I love the alternate Washington design, just not the color. And Philly's uni set is very cool!

[Edubdesign]

Breaking past the halfway point for this project and starting on the Northeast division with the team representing Bahhhstahhhn.

 

There really isn't much more behind the name of the Boston Brutes except me just liking the way it sounds. I took Celtics green, Bruins gold and mashed them together with a giant logo on the front and your general roller tackiness.

 

[Bomba Tomba]

I like the colors and the name, but given that logo, I think "Beasts" fit more

[Edubdesign]

Next team up is Montreal. The last roller hockey team to set up shop in Montreal was the Roadrunners, named after Yvan Cournoyer, "the Roadrunner", who not only owned the team but coached them for a time.

 

The new team name is the Athletiques, based partly on Montreal's considerable hockey history and its status as host of the 1976 Summer Olympics. The uniforms are a take on the Habs' famous Sainte-Flanelle and the old Montreal Wanderers jerseys, while adding in bold, modern touches and emphasizing those red and blue colours.

 

It's simple, it looks like Montreal... it looks like hockey.

 

[vtgco]

Les Athletiques look great; really nice modernization of the Canadiens style and the logo has a nice '70s vibe. A bit different from the rest of the league so far, but in a quite refreshing way that doesn't feel out of place. Really the only suggestions would be to use the blue pants at home and to remove the white outline on the bottom and inside of the legs of the logo's A.

 

I quite like the Mastodons look. I strong disagree with @Bomba Tomba's comment about the pink; the pink is a great call-out to the city and adds a nice pop of color that the set needs. The brown jersey elements, however, do feel kinda shoehorned into the overall design. I think you could keep it as a logo-only color, but I think the logo would also look good in grayscale + pink. I agree with @WLD42; that alt is beautiful and I'd also be curious to hear what the sublimated design is inspired by.

 

Not a fan of the Brutes overall look. It's a bit over the top for me, but setting that aside... Those sharp zig-zags on the logo don't read as whiskers to me and the snout and nose feel a bit too high up. The alt, the one jersey in the set I can get behind, might benefit from the forest green separation of kelly & yellow that the rest of the set has.

[Edubdesign]

Haven't updated in a bit - so, in the spirit of kickstarting this again, let's play two.

 

First up is the New York Emperors - a perfect name for the team from the Empire State. Logo is an eagle, like the one on the top of the state coat of arms. Colours are a mix of the traditional New York sports blue with some athletic gold and we have a chevron motif going on. The alt pays tribute to the Rangers - of course, with some twists.

 

 

And the other team is our second of two Quebec-based clubs, Les Harfangs de Quebec - translating as the Quebec Owls. The snowy owl is Quebec's provincial bird - while we're not showing a snowy owl in the logo, I felt it was a good fit. Logo forms a "Q" shape with a roundel and the owl's wing forming the diagonal.

 

 

One team left in the Northeast division before we head back out west for the Northwest division and some real, tacky, beautiful weirdness.

[GoCubsGo]

I honestly feel like the owl faces or what ever you call it on the Alt, are not needed. They look out of place, and add nothing to the jersey. Besides that, I like the Jersey for both teams.

[LaGrandeOrange]

I like the logo for les harfangs a lot, but...I cannot get past the fact that it is not a snowy owl and thus not an harfang! Perhaps they should just be les hiboux?

[Edubdesign]

On 8/13/2021 at 7:25 PM, alexandre said:

I like the logo for les harfangs a lot, but...I cannot get past the fact that it is not a snowy owl and thus not an harfang! Perhaps they should just be les hiboux?

Well then... a screw-up in my research. Time for a snowy owl, not a tufted owl.

 

How's this then?

[GoCubsGo]

I likethat fleur-de-lis/Owl eye combo more than just the owl eye. Nice Work!